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One thing that annoyed me quite a bit after upgrading to Windows 10 and using a Microsoft Account was, that now I had to actively provide credentials to access the SMB shares on my Synology DiskStation. Whereas before I was able to access the share without being asked to enter a username and password. For some idiotic reason, simply ticking that checkbox that says “Remeber my credentials” didn’t satisfy me. Today, after almost three years (the TP was release on 1st October 2014), I found the embarassingly easy solution.

Updated on 24th November 2017: This article applies to version 1607, 1703, 1709.

With the Windows 10 Pro version 1607 update – also know as the Anniversary Update – Microsoft further strips small and medium businesses from important Group Policy settings. This iteration of the operating system makes it really tedious to provide a clean desktop to my customers and their users, unless they upgrade to the Enterprise edition. This is not financially viable for the majority of them, but that is another matter …

In this article I will focus on the options you have to keep your Windows 10 Pro edition from showing or even installing unwanted apps. If you ever wondered how to keep Candy Crush and other Windows Apps out of your business, or why your methods won’t work with the Anniversary Update anymore, this article is for you.

By default Microsoft Windows 10 Pro ships with a number of provisioned app packages. Whenever a user signs into a computer for the first time, Windows will register (read: installed) all provisioned apps in the newly created user profile.

For listing the provisioned app packages on your computer, use the PowerShell Cmdlet Get-AppxProvisionedPackage.